GDR 99 - Missile Systems

Hypersonics:
a New Age Dawns


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• Countering Proliferation • Oerlikon Aerospace • Hypersonics: a New Age Dawns • Hi-Tech, Low Cost • The Imperative of Interoperability • ARC Enjoys Rocketing Growth • Apaches Reach Out for Hydra • Aiming High: Raytheon's FMRAAM • Meteoric Rise: Matra BAe's Meteor
Top: Hypersonic missiles would be particularly useful for countering rogue states' WMD programmes

By David G Wiencek, president of the International Security Group Inc.

Hypersonic missiles and aerial vehicles offer western defence planners and strategists new options to help meet future military requirements. Travelling at speeds above mach 5 (about one mile per second or 3,600mph at sea level), hypersonic missiles or vehicles could be used for reconnaissance, surveillance, strike, transport and an array of military space and global reach and power projection missions.

Those who have studied the revolution in military affairs (RMA) increasingly point to the emergence of high-speed weapons capable of operating over long distances with a high degree of accuracy, as one of the key technological developments that fundamentally could alter the way in which wars will be conducted. Of similar importance will be the ability to access utilise space-based assets.

Although research into ramjet engine technology dates back at least 50 years, relatively few ramjet vehicles or missiles have been developed. While a ramjet can reach supersonic flight speeds, the development of new supersonic combustion ramjet (or scramjet) engines will be required to achieve sustained hypersonic speeds. To date, most scramjet work has taken place in ground facilities and only Russia has managed to carry out brief flight tests.

Resurgence of interest in hypersonics
Significant investments are being made today by the US and its French, German and Japanese allies. Russia has also demonstrated a keen interest in hypersonic vehicles and continues to sustain a research and development effort despite the severe financial problems at Russian institutes.

If hypersonic missile programmes mature as planned, western nations, including the US, France and perhaps Germany, could deploy hypersonic cruise missiles with notional ranges of about 750-1,000nm/1,390-1,610km and flight times measured in minutes by around 2010. These missiles will be particularly useful for countering rogue states' weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programmes, including nuclear, chemical, biological and radiological weapons, and could find application as fast-reaction tools for destroying hostile ballistic or cruise-missile launchers.

Future hypersonic air-breathing missiles would be highly effective weapons because they approximate the reaction and attack characteristics of long-range ballistic missiles. Similarly, hypersonic missiles would be capable of theatre-wide, regional, or even global targeting when launched from the US. Because of their high speeds they would destroy their targets mainly through kinetic impact and so provide western defence planners with new conventional strike options and relieve concerns about crossing the nuclear threshold.

Selected national programmes - US
During the 1980s US interest in hypersonics was revitalised by the national aerospace plane (NASP) or X-30, a joint DoD-NASA programme designed to demonstrate hypersonic-to-orbit flight as a viable competitor to commercial and military aircraft and space-launch systems. By 1994 NASP had been terminated, resulting in the formation of new US test programmes spread over several agencies and departments.

Key projects


Recently there has been an upsurge in interest in hypersonic air-breathing technologies

Key current projects include the hypersonic technology programme (HyTech), an air force initiative established in 1995 to develop the technologies required for the successful hypersonic flight of missiles, aircraft, or trans-atmospheric vehicles (TAVs). The programme, funded at about US$15m-20m per year, is focusing on developing a liquid hydrocarbon scramjet propulsion system that operates from mach 4 to 8. HyTech is exploring such near-term technology applications as fast-reaction, air-to-surface missiles (ASMs) with ranges of 750nm/1,390km, mach 8 cruise capabilities, and flight times not to exceed 12 minutes.

There is also the Hyper-X programme that has been under development by NASA since 1996, designed to demonstrate technologies that could be applied to re-usable space launchers, hypersonic cruise missiles and other applications. The programme, funded at about US$170m over five years, involves critical flight tests of the first integrated airframe-scramjet vehicle, meaning that the bottom portion of the vehicle is an inseparable part of the propulsion system.

Finally there is Future-X, a preliminary NASA programme that looks beyond Hyper-X and is focused on space plane/transportation demonstrators. Details of the programmes are not yet publicly available.


Reconnaissance and surveillance are two applications for hypersonic aircraft

The US Navy has undertaken a number of hypersonic efforts recently. Among these is a study for a low-cost replacement for its highly regarded Tomahawk land-attack cruise missile. The programme, established in 1996, is known officially as the low-cost missile system advanced-technology demonstration, but widely referred to as Fasthawk. The programme is funded at around US$15m over three years. Another current navy requirement is the high-speed strike system (HiSSS), designed to field a hypersonic missile, ideally by 2006-2010, that could build on technologies developed under Fasthawk. Also it is reported that the navy has outlined an initiative called hypersonic strike (HyStrike), also slated to field an initial operational missile capability by about 2010 with procurement of 1,200 weapons complete by 2014-15.

The defence advanced research projects agency (DARPA) is supporting ARRMD, a new programme designed to establish a technology base for development of a mach 6-8 hydrocarbon-fuelled, ramjet-powered cruise missile with a range of 600nm/1,100km and a payload of 250lb/112kg. ARRMD is also being developed for use against time-critical, defended, hardened or buried targets and would be capable of being launched from ships, tactical aircraft and bombers.

In July 1998 DARPA awarded Boeing a US$10m Phase 1 contract to study two different ARRMD vehicle and propulsion concepts. A follow-on US$40m Phase 2 contract beginning in 2000 will include vehicle development and flight testing from operational platforms.

France
France can trace its activities in the field back to the 1930s and 1940s with the work of ramjet pioneer Rene Leduc, who developed the world's first manned ramjet-powered aircraft. France has continued to build on these early efforts and now incorporates ramjet technology into deployed missiles. In fact it is the only western ally with high-performance ramjets in combat service.

Currently France deploys the ramjet-powered, air-launched, nuclear-armed Air-Sol Moyenne Portee (ASMP) cruise missile capable of speeds of mach 3.5 and a range of 186 miles/300km. A follow-on system, the ASMP-A, that has improved range and stealthiness, is being studied by Aerospatiale that received funding in 1997-98 to develop the Vesta missile as a potential replacement for both the ASMP and the widely deployed Exocet anti-ship cruise missile (ASCM).

France also is working actively on the next generation of scramjet-powered technologies. Aerospatiale has investigated a scramjet missile design for a mach 5-plus air-launched strategic missile under the MARS programme, that reportedly yielded good results. In 1992 France established a national research and technology programme for advanced hypersonic propulsion (PREPHA) sponsored by the ministries of defence and research and technology, and the National Space Agency.

Since 1994 Aerospatiale-Missiles has worked with the Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) to develop a large-scale dual-fuel (hydrocarbon and hydrogen), dual-mode ramjet known as a wide-range ramjet (WRR) for re-usable launch vehicle (RLV) and space applications that will be capable of speeds of mach 3 to mach 12. A WRR prototype will be manufactured and tested in France sometime during 1999/2000.

Germany
In 1988 Germany launched a hypersonics technology programme aimed at establishing a national technology base and fostering international co-operative efforts. The programme explored the concept of a space-launch capability from the European mainland while reducing orbital payload delivery costs. This programme lapsed in 1995 but research activities have continued in industry and academia. On the university side three special collaborative research centres have been established in Aachen, Munich and Stuttgart. Daimler-Benz Aerospace (DASA) was the main contractor in the future European space transportation investigations programme (FESTIP) that began in late 1994 and ran through 1998. Sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA), FESTIP sought to define re-usable space-launcher concepts and identify next-generation launchers. It drew on the work of about 30 different companies or institutes from Austria, Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden.

DASA missile subsidiary LFK has conducted wind-tunnel tests on a supersonic missile designated the ASS 500, a mach 2.5-4 air-launched cruise missile with a projected delivery date of 2015. It is also being designed as a hard-target penetrator that would carry a 1,105lb/500kg kinetic-energy-penetrator warhead up to a range of 310 miles/500km.

LFK is also said to be studying a hypersonic surface-to-air missile under a high-speed missile (HFK) programme known as the hypervelocity air-defence missile-technology demonstrator. This missile is designed for application in a short-range air-defence system. It would reach speeds of mach 5.5. The HFK missile could be ready for tests in 2001.

Japan
In Japan the National Aerospace Laboratory is conducting a space-plane technology-research programme to develop hypersonic technologies and a future space-transportation system. In 1997 a decision was taken to pursue two long-term objectives: an all-rocket-powered SSTO interim transporter and an air-breathing/rocket SSTO manned space plane. The space plane is projected to commence operations in the 2020s.

Developments in the 1990s and beyond
Interest in hypersonics re-emerged after the US launched the NASP programme in the mid-1980s. By the 1990s the Russians had begun conducting tests of hydrogen-fuelled ramjet/ scramjet engines as part of a high-speed flight programme designed to investigate mach 5-7 commercial transports, an SSTO space plane, and hypersonic cruise missiles. The Central Institute of Aviation Motors (CIAM) conducted three successful rocket-boosted flight tests of its axi-symmetric dual-mode mach 6 scramjet design. The first test took place in November 1991 and achieved a speed of mach 5.5.

Subsequently this work was expanded to include US participation. In November 1994 NASA signed a US$1.8m contract with CIAM to conduct joint scramjet testing. As a result of this contract a new test was carried out successfully on 12 February 1998.

Oryol
The Russian Space Agency (RSA) established the Oryol (Eagle) programme in 1993 to investigate a re-usable space transportation system and to study combined propulsion systems. More than 15 Russian research and design organisations are participating in the programme. Four basic vehicle concepts have been selected for detailed future study Ð two near-term and two long-term applications. The near-term vehicles are a vertical take-off, horizontal landing (VTHL), TSTO re-usable omni-azimuth launch vehicle, and a horizontal take-off, horizontal landing (HTHL), SSTO multi-purpose aerospace system (MAKS-OS) launched from atop an Antonov An-225 aircraft carrying an expendable suspended fuel tank. These near-term vehicles hope to achieve initial operating capability in 2006-08.

Igla
RSA also is pursuing the Igla vehicle, an integrated engine/airframe concept similar to the US Hyper-X that employs a hydrogen scramjet. The vehicle is 5m/16.4ft in length and designed for mach 5-14 speeds. It is to be boosted to speed by launch aboard an SS-18 or SS-19 ICBM. A date has not yet been set for an Igla test flight.

The new double threat
It is reported that Russian leaders have promised the military that money derived from the sale of SS-N-22 (Sunburn/Moskit) supersonic ASCMs to China will fund a new generation of hypersonic attack missiles. The SS-N-22 is a formidable mach 2.5 missile with mid-course guidance, active radar homing and a range in excess of 100km/62 miles. It is reported that the SS-N-22 may be capable of a pitch-up manoeuvre that confers a dive speed of mach 4.5 that would help it evade US naval point defence systems such as the Phalanx gun.

The SS-N-22s are part of a recent Chinese purchase of two Sovremeny-class destroyers. Each carries two quad SS-N-22 launchers providing eight missiles per boat. China's acquisition could also provide the People's Liberation Army with insights into Russian ramjet technology that could be applied to China's strategic cruise-missile programmes, giving rise to a new double threat Ð improved, future high-speed missiles in Russia and China.

India

This article is based on a study prepared by the author in 1998 and published by the Centre for Defence and International Security Studies, Lancaster University, UK as The Fastest Things in the Sky: Hypersonic Missiles and Aerial Vehicles; A Technology for the 21st Century, Bailrigg Memorandum 38.

Links: www.internationalsecurity.com www.cdiss.org

During the past year India has announced its intention to pursue hypersonic vehicles for future space and military missions. Indian scientists have described a notional hyperplane for space and military missions and a ramjet-powered pilotless attack vehicle operating as a weapons-delivery platform. The father of India's missile programme, Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, has described the latter vehicle as "our dream missile". Kalam, who is head of the defence R&D organisation (DRDO), said: "The vehicle is a marriage of aircraft, cruise missile and remotely piloted vehicle technologies,". Funding for this drone-type craft will begin during the next three to five years.

Outlook
Hypersonic technologies stretch both the imagination and existing technical frontiers. They require advanced computational methods, designs, structures, materials, fuels, and propulsion systems. Testing, particularly under realistic flight conditions, is the only way to address the many challenges facing the hypersonic research community. Western policymakers need to remain well-informed about this promising technology that will exert a significant influence on the battlefields of the future. And they will have to remain vigilant about indications that this technology could fall into the hands of potential enemies. Were an adversary to obtain this technology, the west would be hard-pressed to defend against it.